With my monthly moonlight snowshoe outing coming up this week, I needed to visit Featherstonhaugh State Forest to see what the snow conditions were like, and whether this trip would be going at all. Surprisingly, there was still a fair amount of snow at this 1200' elevation less than 30 minutes from home. I even saw some fresh ski tracks in the 1/2" of fresh snow that had fallen overnight. The base was crunchy underneath, and the trails were hard-packed and much better suited to snowshoes. I wandered to do some exploring off-trail several times into the somewhat softer deeper, but still crunchy, snow. Near the new beaver pond, I found this specimen:
A LOT of work went into getting to that point, but those guys seem really determined, as this wasn't the only one I saw. Not sure what they plan to do with them once they're down, but it's fun to see this going on anyway.
So, the bottom line is that if tomorrow night stays clear in the early evening, we'll be returning here by moonlight for a very different experience. Last winter's trips like this never happened due to lack of snow, and this winter hasn't been much better. Fingers are crossed that we'll finally get one in.
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